The first person to die of Hantavirus in California was a woman who stayed in one of the cabins at the Valentine Reserve, a University of California research area on the periphery of Mammoth Lakes. After the incident, the university completely gutted the cabin, replacing the shag carpet with lineoleum, among other things. I was the first person to stay in the cabin after this remodeling (in 1997). It was nevertheless a terrific place, with a two foot diameter lodegpole pine growing right up through the floor and the ceiling in the main living area and bats swooping past me in the night. But I still think of the unfortunate woman who preceded me.

Incidentally, I believe but will never know for sure, that I caught Hantavirus in a cabin in the mountains of Colorado at another research station which had mouse dropping all over. The symptoms were clearly beyond what I had ever experienced--I could barely breathe at times---and really should have driven to the hospital in Boulder but did not, and eventually, but very slowly recovered from it.